Now that only five artists remain in the competition, it's
anyone's game.

Scott still feels pretty confident in his abilities to win
the whole competition, but Sausage doesn't think he should count anyone out.

"I don't feel that there's a top anymore," he said. "This is
the top."

Flash Challenge

The remaining five artists climbed aboard a boat to complete
the flash challenge. This week, the
judges were testing proportion, the size of objects in relation to other
objects in the tattoo.

To test proportion, each artist had to sketch the same
object, the Statue of Liberty, using the actual statue as a reference.

In episode nine, Gentle Jay accused Scott of tracing his
designs rather than drawing them himself.
This was Scott's chance to prove his drawing ability to the judges and
his competitors.

An added component to the challenge was that the artists had
to maintain good proportion of the statue in their drawings while the boat was
moving. Halo also had to deal with
seasickness.

When the artists finished their sketches, host Dave Navarro
announced that the challenge was not over.
Once the artists got off the boat, they had three hours to tattoo their
designs on a human canvas.

The judges thought Sausage showed the nicest detail, but he
didn't show enough proportion since he only tattooed the top half of the
statue. Melissa's tattoo showed more
proportion than Sausage's, but her design lacked the feel of a statue. Matti made his tattoo stand out with lots of
contrast, but his background was needless tattooing, the judges said.

The judges loved Scott's drawing with the cityscape behind
it, but he only tattooed six spikes on the crown instead of seven. That's a major design flaw, which cost him
the challenge. The judges chose Halo as
the winner for his stylistic representation of the Statue of Liberty.

Elimination Challenge

As the winner of the flash challenge, Halo won the opportunity
to assign canvases at the elimination challenge.

"I'm throwin' shots at everybody," Halo said.

He was mostly looking forward to giving Scott a difficult
canvas.

To complete this challenge, artists had to tattoo Japanese
snake tattoos on their canvas' ribs.
This is a difficult task since rib tattoos are painful, and it is
difficult to make long, sweeping lines on the ribs.

Since the traditional Japanese style has a lot of rules, guest
judge Horitaka, also known as Taki, helped the judges critique the artists'
Japanese designs.

Halo distributed the canvases, giving himself the canvas who
has experience sitting for an eight-hour tattoo and giving Scott the canvas who
has never had a rib tattoo before. Scott
struggled to make sure his canvas could handle the pain. She begged for a break during the tattoo, but
Scott wouldn't let her tap out. This
experience gave Scott a chance to see what he has been dishing out all season.

Tattoo Critique

Since the competition is coming down to the wire and since
the artists struggled to understand the rules of Japanese style, everyone would
be getting rough critiques, the judges said.

Melissa's design represented Japanese style the best. But the head of her snake was not
proportional to the body, and the curves of the snake weren't smooth. The judges said she should work on her
drawings because they are a bit stiff.

Matti did a nice job of making sure his snake was
proportional to the flower in his design, which fit his canvas' body
nicely. The judges were impressed with
the amount of space he covered, and the proficiency with which he tattooed, but
he did have some design flaws.

Sausage struggled with proportion. The skull he incorporated into his design was
too small compared to the snake. But,
the judges did like his nice, subtle background.

Despite his advantage in assigning canvases, Halo did not
perform well in this challenge. His
tattoo took on a tomb-stone shape, which would have fit better on the arm than
on the ribs. The judges also pointed out
many flaws in the shape of the snake, such as the belly, which was drawn in the
wrong direction.

Halo may not have been successful with his own canvas, but
he was successful in "dethroning Scott." Judge Chris Nunez thought Scott's
tattoo was the worst of the day. From a
distance, it was difficult to tell what the tattoo was. The judges didn't like the layout or how the
tattoo fit on the body. Guest Judge Taki
also said that Scott's design was "insulting and utterly incorrect" for the
Japanese style.

The judges named Matti the winner of best tattoo of the day
for his tattoo's composition.

Bottom Three

Since Matti and Scott are in an alliance, Matti refused to
put his buddy in the bottom three. He
chose Halo instead because Halo is a threat in the flash challenges.

The human canvas jury voted Scott's tattoo as the worst of
the day. The judges gave Scott a second
chance because this was his first hiccup of the competition. They also recognized Halo for winning
previous challenges. Although Melissa
didn't have the worst tattoo of the day, the judges eliminated her because she
hadn't won any challenges.

What did you think of
tonight's elimination? Is it fair to eliminate Melissa just because she hadn't
won previous challenges? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.